Chapter 1 - Wild Readers Dedicate Time to Read
Already, this book has lots of ideas that I can integrate into my classroom. In fact, I suspect that I will re-read each chapter just to make sure I'm recording all of the ideas so I remember them in August. (And I may go back and re-read The Book Whisperer, too!) But one thing that I really want to emphasize this year is building a community of readers. I like the idea of students sharing the books they're reading and making recommendations to each other. Personally, I use GoodReads to track that information for myself (I've blogged about that before here). I've also had my students blog about their reading (see here). But what I'd really like is something more like GoodReads - a social networking site - but appropriate for fourth graders.
I recently stumbled across the site Reading Rewards through a Twitter Chat, and this might be the answer I'm looking for.
This site allows you to set up your class into a reading community where they can create libraries of the books they've read, write book reviews, get and make recommendations, and make a wishlist of books they want to read. There is also a reading log component and a reward system that allows you and parents to create rewards based on achieving individualized reading goals. I haven't had a chance to try this out with students yet, but based on my exploration of the site, it looks very promising.
Do you have any experience with the Reading Rewards website? Have you come across any other sites you'd recommend for building a community of readers? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
